


Across the Universe

by antigrav_vector



Series: (R)BB fics - all pairings [10]
Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action, Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Magic, Minor Injuries, Mission Fic, Missions, Missions Gone Wrong, Multiverse, Rescue Missions, get-together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 10:54:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10829805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/pseuds/antigrav_vector
Summary: During a mission, Iron Man vanishes. Captain America isn't about leave a man down -- or missing -- on the field. Going after his missing teammate reveals a bit more than he really intended, though. Now, he has to decide what -- if anything -- he wants to do about the feelings he's finally had to acknowledge.





	Across the Universe

**Author's Note:**

> Posted with thanks to my beta-reader [Amonae](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Amonae/pseuds/Amonae)!
> 
> The art by [hundredthousands](http://hundredthousands-art.tumblr.com) that goes with the fic is linked here: [comic page 1](https://68.media.tumblr.com/d2321bbd21b4279b6366199f1fcd6f64/tumblr_operd5p6eH1vdl1iko1_540.png) | [comic page 2](https://68.media.tumblr.com/a4cb366fcab9d83300c4f2edd7ebe992/tumblr_operd5p6eH1vdl1iko2_540.png)

So far the mission had been going well, and Steve found he didn't trust that. Something about missions that went too smoothly set off all his instincts, without fail. He was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, Bucky used to tell him.

They'd managed to get the quinjet to their designated landing zone, about two klicks to the south of the HYDRA base they were planning to level -- incidentally a ruined medieval castle in northern Italy that had been more or less rebuilt in the late '30s and served as an Axis base during the War -- and from there they'd all managed to get into position around the castle for the assault.

"Everyone ready?" Steve asked over their comms.

"Aye," Thor replied first, still on comms, since he hadn't yet had to call down the lightning on anyone.

One by one, the others all checked in, including Bruce who would be staying with the quinjet unless the Hulk was needed, keeping their responses brief and quiet, since they were _technically_ supposed to be radio silent. Steve waited almost anxiously until Tony did. The two of them had been dancing around the issue of being in a relationship ever since the Chitauri Invasion, and Steve wasn't ashamed to admit he wanted that. Well, he wasn't anymore. Tony had been more reluctant, right from the start.

At first, Steve could understand why. Tony had still been trying to make things work with Pepper, and though Steve could see that it wasn't going to be sustainable, he chose to keep silent. There was a time to speak and a time to keep his trap shut, and he knew it. He just didn't always follow his own advice when it resulted in someone else getting physically hurt.

Seeing Tony all but run himself into the ground to keep Pepper, though. That had been its own unique kind of pain, and Steve had repeatedly fought himself to a standstill over the question of whether to speak up. They were both hurting, and so was he.

But, in the end, it wasn't his choice. That's what it all came down to. He'd learned that lesson when Bucky had fallen to his death.

Shaking off the thoughts, Steve refocused his attention. He needed to be on top of things, or this could get messy. The fortress they were about to assault was well-defended, and SHIELD had gotten intel that HYDRA was working on some sort of super weapon here, though no one could seem to find out what it was supposed to do.

Taking a breath, Steve nodded to himself and started his approach; it was time. "Avengers, assemble!"

He could hear Tony's grin over the line as he answered, "We're already here, Cap."

Clint's arrows began flying, the slight twang of his bowstring sounding over the comms every so often as he picked off the sentries for them, and then moved on to dealing with the guards he could see, and the surprised patrols. "Now's as good a time as any, if you guys want to get a move on," he commented.

"On it," Natasha replied as Steve vaulted over a vehicle that reminded him of a half-track. "Can you get the one on the wall to my west?"

"Mind if I cut in?" A repulsor blast answered her and the guy fell, just as Steve burst into the courtyard and began laying out any enemies he could find. He tried not to shake his head at Tony's antics.

"Iron Man," he interjected, "can you get to the labs? We'll handle this."

"I'm a little tied up at the moment," Tony answered, fighting off a full squad of HYDRA men, who had done their best to surround him and use their weird energy weapons to blast through his armour. His repulsors took out most of the squad, and Thor's lightning got a few more.

And then the shoe dropped.

A man popped up on the ramparts they'd previously cleared, holding something that looked a lot like a stinger missile launcher, and aimed at Tony.

Tony immediately took to the air and barreled towards the guy in an attempt to both prevent him from having a chance to aim and to take him out, but it was too late. Steve could see it happening in slow motion. The same moment Tony took off, the guy fired, but instead of a rocket, a blindingly white-blue beam of light streamed out of the business end of the weapon. It hit Tony square in the chest, and sent him flying backwards -- right at Steve, who didn't have time to dodge.

The rest of their teammates yelled at them over the comms, words overlapping into an unintelligible dismayed shout. Before Steve could react, Tony slammed into him bodily, the impact knocking him down. They both hit the ground hard. Steve's head hit the the flagstones floor of the courtyard with a sharp crack.

The world went dark.

* * *

When he woke, Steve found himself in SHIELD's medical facilities, and he still had a knot on the back of his skull that throbbed with every movement he made. Natasha, who was sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chair by his door, absently cleaning under her fingernails with one of her knives, looked up the moment he opened his eyes.

He closed them again with a hiss. "What happened?"

Natasha shut off the lights and Steve was tempted to call her an angel of mercy. He might heal faster than anyone else except maybe Wolverine or Deadpool, but the serum hadn't made him immune to pain. Concussions hurt.

Natasha handed him a cup full of ice chips and pulled her chair over so she could sit by the bed. "After you and Iron Man went down, and more or less shattered your helmet, by the way, Clint hit the guy in the face with a dose of that horse tranquilizer Stark just made for his arrow collection. We got the weapon—which turns out to be what we were sent in to retrieve—and got you back here."

Steve eyed her. There was a glaring hole in her explanation. "What aren't you telling me?" He demanded.

Natasha looked at him silently for a moment, as though weighing her options, then answered. "Stark's missing."

"What?" Steve stared at her. "He got his idiotic ass blown up and gave me this concussion. How is he missing?"

"We're not sure. Banner thinks that weapon of HYDRA's is at fault, and he's been examining it."

That raised a lot more questions, but Steve stuck to the important one. "How long was I out?"

Natasha winced visibly. "Three days. We were worried."

Closing his eyes for a moment, Steve tipped the rest of the ice chips into his mouth and threw back the thin cover that was keeping his legs warm.

"Careful," Natasha warned him, "if you fall on your face, I'm making sure you stay here for another day or two."

"I'm fine now," Steve huffed at her, standing. He wavered for a moment, dizzy, then found his balance again. "What I want is something real to eat, and then an update from Bruce."

Glancing around the room, he spotted a set of clothes that was clearly intended for his trip back to the Tower, and started pulling them on. Natasha made no move to leave, and Steve didn't much care, either. They'd all seen one another naked, or nearly so, in the wake of a mission at least once. In some cases multiple times. Steve was starting to think that maybe Tony had an exhibitionist streak in him, he mused as he pulled his shirt on.

"I'll have JARVIS order something," Natasha told him, and followed him out of the room.

The trip back to the Tower was thankfully short, and Steve was quietly grateful for that, because his nerves were rapidly fraying. He needed to eat and talk to Bruce before he snapped at someone who didn't deserve it.

And then, a thought struck him. "Natasha," he asked, "has anyone told Pepper?"

"Right after the debrief. Don't worry. She's not happy, but she's handling it."

They got to the lobby as the food arrived, and Natasha deftly relieved the delivery man of the stack of boxes. He'd already been paid and tipped by JARVIS, and made no fuss about handing over what he was carrying. 

When he heard Steve was back in the Tower, Bruce came up of his own accord to check on him. "You feeling okay, Cap?"

"Okay enough to be getting tired of hearing that," he responded, opening the first carton and starting to inhale what was in it, not really caring what it was. "What have you got on that weapon?"

Bruce gave him a knowing look, and started talking. "Not too much, yet. I haven't dared mess with the thing's settings, but I've tested it out. It seems to work on inanimate objects as well as living ones. It just takes longer to have an effect on living tissue, which I suspect is why Tony had enough time to knock you flat."

"What about the data we got from that base? Didn't that have any usable intel in it?"

Bruce gave him a wry smile. "They managed to wipe their mainframe and network before Natasha could get to it. With Tony... gone, and you out cold, we had higher priorities at the time."

Steve growled, frustrated. "So what _do_ we know?"

Bruce sighed. "It seems to be some kind of spatiotemporal translocator."

"Translation please?" If he had to listen to technobabble this conversation was not going to end well, and Steve knew it.

"It moves things through time and space." Bruce eyed him a trifle warily. 

Some ten minutes later, Steve was working his way through his third carton of food, and Bruce's explanation was coming to its conclusion. From what Steve could parse, the weapon Tony had been hit with worked based on the manipulation of some kind of time particle he'd never heard of, and it should be possible to get Tony back if they can reverse the polarity. How exactly to do that, though, Bruce had no idea. Yet.

* * *

It took some arguing to put his plan into action, but Steve was stubborn. 

The rest of the team had tried to argue him out of it. Tried to tell him that going after Tony was impossible. That even if he did end up in the same place in space and time, they still would have no way to get either one of them back. That Steve was important to them strategically and they needed him for any missions that might come up while Tony was 'out of town,' as Clint had put it. That he was one of the team's heavy hitters and needed for any kind of defensive mission. That Tony might be dead because of the effects of the weapon.

Steve had shot down all their arguments one by one; he had never left a man down on the field if he could help it and he wasn't about to start now. He was a good all-round fighter, and that was why—since they couldn't afford to send more than one person, they should send him. That Natasha was nearly as good as he was at tactics and could lead the team in his absence. That Thor was enough of a heavy hitter to make up for his absence.

It took a while, and a lot of shouting, but the others eventually gave in to his demands.

Bruce insisted on waiting a day to send him after Tony, so that he could fit a couple of rats with the equivalent of radio collars and figure out just how lethal the process was.

The thought made Steve swallow back more apprehension than he knew what to do with. If the rats turned up dead, there was no point in going, himself. He knew that. And even if they didn’t , there's a good chance that this would be a one-way trip; Bruce repeated that at him like a broken record, but there was no way Steve was about to throw Tony to the metaphorical—or possibly literal—wolves.

* * *

Steve had to argue with the team some more about his plan to go after Tony, even after Bruce confirmed that the rats hadn't been killed by the transfer, but their continued protests hadn't swayed him.

Bruce insisted on fitting him with the same devices he'd used on the rats, and the others had backed him up. Steve could see the merit in the idea. If nothing else, Bruce could (probably) trace the signal and get them back. He refused to think about the fact that Bruce might only be able to get _him_ back, that way.

Once the rest of the team was satisfied that Bruce's tracker device was solidly in place, Steve put his shield on his arm. "Do it," he demanded.

Bruce swallowed, but nodded. "Be careful, Steve."

Natasha glared at him. "You're still injured," she put in. "Don't do anything stupid."

Clint simply nodded.

"I have no doubt that you will be successful, my friend," Thor told him, clapping a heavy hand to Steve's shoulder and almost making him stagger, "but do not take risks you must not."

When Thor stepped back, Bruce directed him to a designated point in the lab, about five meters in front of the weapon, which had been mounted to something that looked like a cross between a camera tripod and the type of supports you'd find on a heavy machine gun.

"Do it," he demanded again, getting impatient, and knowing he was probably telegraphing his feelings very clearly.

Bruce leaned over the weapon, placed at waist height, and pulled the trigger. It fired a blast of the same bright white-blue light he'd seen hit Tony and then Steve felt like he was being turned inside out. A sharp stab of pain shot through all his muscles, making them cramp instantly, and feeling a bit like an electric shock. This was followed by the sensation of free fall, for all that he had his feet planted firmly on Bruce's lab floor—or maybe he didn't anymore; he couldn't tell. And then the real pain hit.

Steve bit back a scream, feeling like all the blood in his veins had suddenly been replaced with a mix of fire and acid and was burning him up from the inside out. It hurt worse than getting the serum had, worse than anything else he could ever remember feeling.

And then, abruptly, it stopped between one instant and the next.

Of course, he also found himself falling through the air.

When he landed he went down hard, falling to the ground in an undignified heap, unprepared for a fall. It took him a few dazed moments to gather his wits and take stock. 

Unsurprisingly, he was in a completely unfamiliar place. It smelled and felt like jungle. Looked like it, too. That made him immediately uneasy. He hadn't brought much in the way of survival gear. Mostly weapons and ammunition. And his shield. But how much good that would do him here, he had no idea.

Taking his time to get his bearings as best he could, Steve brushed some dirt and leaves off his uniform. The trees surrounding him were tall, blocking out most of the sun, and had trunks it might take five men to wrap their arms around and get their hands to touch. They were massive, larger than any he'd ever seen, though he knew of a few like this that still existed in the parks and nature reserves of the pacific northwest.

The layer of dead leaves underfoot was springy, and was going to be of no help at all in his attempts to work out where Tony had gone, or if his teammate had even come through here. For all he knew, the device had dumped him somewhere completely different, and there was no way he could determine that one way or the other.

Somewhere off in the distance in a direction he thought was roughly northwest, judging by the angle of the sunlight, he could hear the low roar of a waterfall. If Tony remembered their survival training at all, it was likely he'd headed that way.

Steve himself knew he wasn't the best tracker, but he knew the basics. He'd had to learn them during the War, and had kept up with it since, reasoning that it might come in useful if he or the team were ever stranded. He felt rather justified in that, now. But the upshot was that he knew how to read the environment, even if he'd never done it in jungle before.

Setting out toward the sound of the waterfall, Steve kept a wary eye out for predators and signs that he'd possibly picked up Tony's trail. He had no idea what might lurk in this forest, but the tales he'd heard about snakes that grew to thirty feet long and could kill crocodiles or buffalo were far from reassuring. And that wasn't even taking into account the possibility that HYDRA had sent Tony to a place where magic was a more widely acknowledged force than it was in their world.

He knew of the Sorcerer Supreme, even if he'd never met the man, and knew that there was the distinct possibility that other universes existed. Tony had ranted about some guy called Richards and his crazy theories. Steve suspected that they probably held a grain of truth; they had a literal Norse god on the team, and he'd personally seen Schmidt get vaporised by the Tesseract, which had seemed to open a portal to some mind-bendingly weird place beyond Steve's comprehension.

Lost in thought, for all that he was still subconsciously scanning his surroundings as he walked, he managed to literally stumble across Tony's faceplate. It looked half mangled, one side of it shattered and broken.

The sight sent a strong pang of dread through him to coil low in his gut, feeling like a rock weighing him down. Steve bent to pick up the faceplate, turning it this way and that in the light that filtered down to the forest floor. It looked like it had been violently torn off the rest of the helmet, much like Thor had done after the Chitauri invasion, and the crumpled, ragged edge looked like the metal had been _torn_.

Knowing just how tough Tony's armour was, that thought made Steve wince, and the tension in him wind just a little tighter. Anything that could do that to Tony's armour could easily rip him apart bodily, and Steve as well.

Suddenly uneasy, he kept walking, carrying the faceplate with him. He wasn't sure how he felt about the fact that he was continuing to find broken armour plates as he went, like a trail of technological breadcrumbs. It reassured him that he was on the right track, but each new plate he found mades his nerves fray that little bit more as he worried whether he'd end up finding a dead body at the end of this trail of shattered glory, like the cold lump of ice you'd find at the center of a comet after following it's brightly gleaming tail. 

Finding the chestplate, with a set of deep ragged gouges diagonally across it, all but made him lose hope.

Steve hadn't carried the rest of the shattered armour components with him, unwilling to have his hands full if anything tried to ambush him, but he hadn't been able to leave the faceplate behind. He tucked it in his belt and crouched to examine the chestplate more carefully. There were a few, thankfully small, splatters of blood on it. They were nearly invisible on the surface, but Steve could smell them once he picked the piece up. The scent sent a jolt of nausea through him and nearly made him drop it again so he could run his hands through his hair in an effort to calm himself down. 

Resisting the urge, he put the chestplate down again and swallowed hard against the tightness in his throat.

He wasn't giving up until he saw a body, and confirmed Tony's status, one way or the other.

The thing was...

The thing was that it took a hell of a lot to destroy the armour like that. Tony's suit was tougher than anything else he'd seen in this modern world, other than maybe his shield. Anything that could mangle Tony's armour like that had to be ridiculously powerful, and odds were good it was still out there. Probably licking its wounds, granted, but not dead, judging by the lack of bodies or other evidence Steve had found thus far.

* * *

He'd reached the edges of the dense areas of the forest by the time he found more than broken fragments of Tony's armour, and the roar of the waterfall was much louder now. He still couldn't see it, but now there were mountains visible in the distance when he peered through the slightly wider gaps between the trees in an attempt to plot his course.

It felt like he'd been walking for about three hours, but that meant nothing, and Steve knew it. If he had been tossed into an alternate universe by that HYDRA weapon, there were better than even odds that time moved differently here. He'd spoken to Thor about it briefly, once, and learned that on Asgard a day was about equal to a month on Earth.

None of that mattered in the moment, though. The bright red and gold gleam of a very familiar repulsor boot had caught his attention, and Steve tensed. He'd have to approach carefully. Tony was sure to be on a hair trigger, and possibly injured.

His teammate had chosen his makeshift foxhole well, hiding himself away in the trunk of a hollow tree so that he could get some rest. It made for an excellent defensive position. There was only one approach, and Tony had settled himself so that he could easily see anyone -- or anything -- that was approaching. He'd also kept the armour's boots and gauntlets, despite the visible damage they'd taken; the rest had been sacrificed, but he'd kept his mobility and primary weaponry.

Even those few pieces Tony had kept had taken a hell of a beating, though. Steve could see a number of deep gouges in the metal from where he stood, a few meters away.

"Iron Man?" Steve broke the silence he'd kept since getting here, his voice coming out a bit hoarse.

He got no answer, and debated whether to approach or not. If Tony was asleep, waking him could very easily get Steve a repulsor to the face. That was the last thing he needed or wanted right now, so he slid his shield off his back and onto his arm. "Iron Man," he tried again, "respond."

The silence that answered him again was worrying. If he'd come all this way to find out that his worst fears were coming true–

Steve shuddered and forced the thought aside unfinished. He kept his shield at the ready as he took the few steps up to the tree, cautious. Up this close, it was obvious that Tony was either out cold or–

Swallowing against the emotion that threatened to choke him, and doing his best not to acknowledge the fact that it was far more than team solidarity that had driven him to follow Tony here, Steve peeled one of his gloves off with his teeth. He didn't put down his shield as he reached out with his bare right hand, to gingerly touch Tony.

He couldn't reach the pulse points at Tony's wrists, blocked by the gauntlets that covered Tony's arms up to his elbows, and he didn't want to have to explain having his hands anywhere near Tony's groin, either. That left only one viable option. Putting his hand against Tony's cheek first, on the off chance that it might make him less likely to get punched or repulsored if Tony's subconscious knew he was there, Steve had to force his hand not to shake.

The relief that seemed to pour through him from head to toe when his hand hit warm skin was almost enough to knock him flat. It might, he acknowledged privately, be high time he told Tony about a few things, like feelings. Not that he was naive enough to expect that to go well.

For now it was enough that Tony was alive, Steve told himself, checking Tony's breathing and pulse.

He seemed to be more or less uninjured, and Steve wasn't about to get handsy while Tony was unconscious, even in the name of field medicine. Not when there wasn't any life threatening injury to be dealt with.

Pulling back and standing, Steve ducked back out of the hollow tree and staggered when his knees tried to give out in. He leaned against it the tree trunk for a moment, steadying himself, then surveyed the area. He needed a place from which he could keep watch until Tony recovered enough and woke.

* * *

The skies were darkening, and Steve was debating whether making a fire would be more likely to draw attention to them or keep the wild beasts away, when Tony finally came awake with a quiet, pained groan. He turned his attention to Tony's foxhole, but didn't make a move to approach yet. "Iron Man?"

The whine of the repulsors powering up startled Steve, and he hastily put his shield between himself and the now-brightly glowing gauntlets. "Tony? Hey, Tony. Stand down. It's me."

Tony eyed him skeptically. "Either this is another weird fucking dream and you're a figment of my imagination, or you're even stupider and crazier than I thought you were."

Steve huffed at him. "I wasn't about to just leave a man down on the field."

"Right, sure," Tony scoffed, "that's great and all, but doesn't prove you're real. Or that you're who you seem to be."

"What would?" Steve asked.

Something small and metallic whizzed toward him. Reflexively, Steve blocked it with his shield and it ricocheted off the vibranium alloy with a resonant 'ping.' He raised an eyebrow at Tony. "What exactly did that prove?"

"Well, there's a good chance you're physically present, I'd recognise the ring of metal bouncing off that one-of-a-kind hunk of vibranium alloy anywhere, and I hurt too much to be dreaming," Tony replied. "But it does mean that you did something insane, even by our standards, and somehow got yourself sent after me to... wherever the fuck we are. Which, I have to admit, would be in character."

Steve lowered the shield, letting his arm hang loosely at his side. "You can't have hit your head too hard if you're insulting me like that," he shot back.

Tony grinned at him. "You're in a better mood than I expected if you're just going to let me."

With a huff, Steve took a few steps toward him, stopping when Tony tensed. "Tony?"

"It's been a long day," Tony forced himself to relax, his shoulders dropping and posture loosening, "and it's nowhere near over."

Looking up at the sky through the branches, Steve realised that twilight was flooding over the landscape. The sky was turning brilliant shades of orange and rose and purple in clear prelude to full darkness.

Only then did he realise with a jolt—his stomach growled loudly at him—that he was ravenous.

Tony gave him a dryly amused look, and Steve shrugged, pulling one of his emergency ration bars out of the belt pouch at his right hip. "Had more important things on my mind."

Cramming it in his mouth and holding it between his teeth, he reached in for a second one and opened it for Tony; the armour was very dextrous, but not quite enough for this kind of fine control. Tony watched him for another long moment, then gingerly took the ration bar.

They ate the rather sorry excuse for a meal in relatively comfortable silence. Eventually Tony broke it. "So you came in after me. Please tell me you also had a plan for how to get back out."

"Well," Steve started.

He was interrupted by a dull whump of displaced air and a small cloud of pink dust.

* * *

When the dust cleared—seeming to just vanish rather than settle onto the ground—he caught sight of a man dressed in perhaps the oddest get-up he'd seen since his unintentional bout of time travel. The newcomer was wearing a bright blue tunic with what looked like a white cross on it and pants dyed to match, and a crimson cape that seemed to have a mind of its own, the way it drifted around him even in the dead calm air.

Tony gave the guy a sour, entirely unimpressed look. "And you are?"

"I," the guy replied, his tone lofty and a bit distant, "am this world's Sorcerer Supreme, and the two of you are trespassing."

Steve raised an eyebrow at the man, and kept his silence. This guy looked weirdly reminiscent of Tony, had he been born decades earlier and utterly unaware of what fashion was. Sounded a lot like Tony, too, which was just bizarre.

"Well, excuse me," Tony grumbled. "It's not like I had any choice. And why the hell do I feel like I'm talking to bizarro-me?"

It echoed his thoughts closely enough that Steve had to suppress an amused huff. Instead he shrugged, carefully keeping his expression as neutral as he could manage. "We'd prefer to get home, if it's all the same to you," he said, watching the stranger closely. "I can't say I believe in magic, but if you can help us get back where we need to be, I'm not about to make a fuss about that."

The Sorcerer Supreme watched them both for a few long seconds before he nodded grudgingly. "Very well. You don't appear to be hiding anything or anyone, and that is a far more open-minded approach than many of your alternate versions have taken."

Tony rolled his eyes when the stranger turned away from them and Steve had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep his expression from revealing his own opinion of this Sorcerer Supreme. The man acted as though he hadn't a care in the world or a need to potentially defend himself from a pair of super heroes with abilities like theirs.

Then, in the space between that thought and the next, the earth shifted under Steve's feet, and his inner ear did something that resembled a loop-the-loop, and he was staggering as his feet hit carpeted floor.

Tony fell into him before he could get his balance back, and they landed in a tangled heap. Steve was fairly sure he would have bruises thanks to the hard wooden floor that the carpeting only barely cushioned. Tony groaned, pained, where he'd landed sprawled on top of him. The remaining armour panels dug into Steve's skin uncomfortably when Tony shifted slightly.

"The disorientation will pass quickly. Don't try to leave the room. The door is warded," the Sorcerer Supreme informed them, his tone unconcerned, and he left them alone.

Tony didn't bother to move. "You know what," he grumbled into the rough outer layer of bulletproof fabric of Steve's uniform, "after the day I've had, I'm staying right here. You're more comfortable than that tree was."

Oddly, that made a few tumblers fall into place, and Steve stared down at the top of Tony's head wordlessly. He'd done something stupid today, but it wasn't going after Tony, he decided. It was realising that he'd fallen for the man, somehow. This depth of feeling went way beyond the attraction he'd been considering confessing, and left him feeling suddenly unsure of his mental footing. 

He was going to have to do a lot of thinking once they got home.

As though that thought had summoned him, the Sorcerer Supreme reappeared in the room and made an amused sound. "I suppose I should have known the two of you would find one another in more than one universe," he quipped, sounding entirely too pleased about the idea that they were together _even though they weren't_. "Try not to go dimension hopping by accident again."

Before Steve could even begin to process how he felt about the underlying assumption that they were stepping out together, the floor shifted under him a second time and the room around them disappeared.

* * *

They landed on the Tower's common room floor, still tangled together, and Steve wasn't sure what to think when Tony's face ended up pressed against his chest again. Tony's hips had slotted into place between his legs with a natural ease that made Steve want all manner of things he shouldn't. Well, couldn't. Not without working out exactly what he wanted to do first. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Tony?"

"Nope, not moving. I'm having a nap now."

Amused despite the mire of confusing desires and emotions trying to crowd the thoughts right out of his head, Steve huffed at his teammate. "Go to bed, Tony. You'll regret it less in the morning."

Tony grumbled at him but slowly climbed to his feet. "Ugh, you're worse than Rhodey."

Steve picked himself up and dusted off his uniform once Tony was steady. His own inner ear was still protesting the abruptness of the shift, but he managed not to waver too obviously.

"It's good to have you both back," JARVIS put in. "Dr. Banner was quite concerned that you would not be able to find a way back, as he could not work out how to reverse the device's effects."

Tony sniffed. "No faith. How long were we gone?"

"Just under two weeks."

Steve winced. Oops. That was far longer than he'd expected. "Felt like just a few hours to us. What did we miss, JARVIS?"

"I am pleased to report that there have been no earth-shattering developments, though Ms. Potts has been quite upset about Sir's disappearance."

Tony sighed. "It wasn't my fault," he grumbled.

"Nevertheless," the AI replied, "it might be wise to let her know you have returned home without suffering any ill effects."

With a groan, Tony turned and clomped toward the elevator, his boots thudding hollowly against the floor. "First, I'm getting the rest of the armour off. Then you can call her."

Steve watched him go, then retreated to his own apartments; he needed some time to think. And a shower.

* * *

He didn't see Tony for about fifty straight hours, after that. Pepper had shown up, as requested—Steve had run into her briefly as she'd left again and he'd made himself something to eat—and then Tony had more or less barricaded himself in his workshop. When Steve had asked JARVIS what was up, the AI hadn't been able to give him an answer. Or perhaps, Steve reflected, JARVIS hadn't been allowed to, security protocols being what they were.

Thor, Clint and Natasha tracked him down the morning after their return, and asked him all kinds of questions about where he'd been and what had happened. The Sorcerer Supreme character that had helped them home had been of particular interest to them.

Bruce had cornered him just after lunch on their second day back, and insisted on doing a series of esoteric scans that involved Steve standing perfectly still under what looked like a ring of lights for long enough that he wanted to fidget. Once he'd finished that, Bruce had decided that he needed to get back the tracker belt thing he'd devised at the beginning of this whole mess.

Rather than let Steve go to his locker to get the thing and bring it back, Bruce followed him there, the prospect of new data that no one else had ever seen driving him to be almost as intent on his goal as Tony could get when he was in one of his designing fugues.

Bruce took the belt without a word and disappeared again, and Steve could only watch him go, bemused.

Of course, he was fated not to have a calm moment to himself when he wanted one—he still had yet to come to any kind of conclusion on what to do about his feelings for Tony—and less than half an hour later Fury came calling, demanding that they hand over the HYDRA weapon they'd recovered.

"Captain," JARVIS' voice sounded from vaguely overhead as Steve tried to find the focus to watch one more of the movies on his list, "Director Fury is inbound."

"What does he want?" Steve asked the AI.

Rather than answer him, JARVIS said, "you may ask him yourself in ten seconds."

Steve had been tempted to roll his eyes. That man had apparently never learned how to knock. 

"Captain," the SHIELD Director greeted him as he stepped out of the elevator and onto the common floor.

"Director," Steve said evenly, getting to his feet. "What's bothering you today?"

Fury scowled at him. "What's bothering me?" he repeated, exaggerated incredulity lacing his tone. "What's bothering me is that my flagship team misplaced one of its members, neglected to inform me, unilaterally took the HYDRA prototype they were meant to retrieve, deliberately misplaced another of their members, also without informing me, then concealed everything for two weeks and used Stark's pet AI to stonewall all of SHIELD's inquiries. Now I'm informed that you and Stark are back from your little vacation but neither of you is available for debrief."

Steve had to admit privately that it definitely sounded like they'd been AWOL. He shrugged, keeping the gesture as loose and careless as he could manage, knowing that it would wind Fury up that little bit more. "And? What do you propose we do about that, sir?"

"For fuck's sake. You been taking lessons from Stark in being a pain in my ass?"

"No. But I might in future."

"Tread carefully, Captain," Fury growled at him. "You are not as irreplaceable as you think you are."

"Is that a threat?" Steve raised an eyebrow.

"No, but it might become one in future," Fury threw his own words back at him.

"Look, Director," Steve said, tiring of the games, "either tell me what you want or get out. I'll take any dare you throw at me, and I really don't much care if it blows up in your face. I spent more than enough time telling the US Army where to shove it during the War. You don't _really_ think they just let me put together an integrated unit and make them my personal demolition team without a fuss, do you?"

A tense silence fell for a few seconds, and Steve stared down the man nominally in charge of the team. "Well?"

"Turn over the prototype and do your goddamn debriefs."

Steve snorted. "Yeah, I doubt the team will easily agree to those terms, after the way SHIELD fumbled the situation with the Tesseract and the Chitauri. But feel free to try."

Rather than continue arguing, Fury turned and swept back into the elevator. "Those are my terms, Rogers," he tossed over his shoulder, "think them over."

Watching him go, Steve reflected that the standoff had at least made for a good distraction.

Now that it was over he had to try—again—to decide on what to do about his attraction to Tony.

He bit back a sigh and let himself fall down onto the sofa with one arm over his face. "Why is my life so complicated?"

* * *

Three hours later, Steve found himself holding a plate of sandwiches and staring down the door of Tony's workshop, indecisive.

On the one hand, he knew damned well that Tony hadn't eaten a proper meal since their return—and, Steve had to admit, sandwiches didn't really count either, but it was better than those somewhat horrifying smoothies—but on the other, he really wasn't sure he was ready to deal with the feelings that seeing Tony was sure to pull out of him.

"Captain," JARVIS' voice sounded, smooth and British as ever, "you are aware, I trust, that staring at the door will not cause it to open."

Biting back the groan that tried to escape and catching the door as it popped open for him at JARVIS' command, Steve forced himself into motion. "Yeah, JARVIS, I know."

The rock music that Tony had kept turned way up as he worked suddenly lowered to a volume appropriate for background music, and Steve gave the AI's cameras a thankful look. Tony himself popped up like one of those meerkats Steve'd seen at the Zoo not long ago, and looked around, his eyes wide.

"What? Cap? What're you doing here? Do I need to suit up?" Tony asked as he stumbled away from his workstation.

Steve caught his shoulder and turned him toward his kitchenette instead. "No, you need to eat, and I brought sandwiches."

Tony eyed him warily, as though unsure what to think of that. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that bringing food into a machine shop is a bad idea, Rogers?"

Steve shrugged. "Not recently. And if you really thought that, JARVIS would have stopped me at the door."

"Why are you here?" Tony crossed his arms, instead of taking the plate, suspicion still clear.

This moment felt like a crossroads; Steve could either tell Tony exactly why he'd felt the need to bring him food, or deflect.

Well, he'd never been one to take the easy path, not when the right thing to do dictated otherwise. Squaring his shoulders and swallowing back his apprehension, Steve made a decision. "For the same reason I came after you when you got yourself zapped by HYDRA," he replied

Tony huffed at him, but gestured to the counter of the small kitchenette. "Put down that plate. I need some coffee."

"You really don't," Steve told him, setting the plate on the countertop in deference to Tony's aversion to being handed things. "What you need is a few hours' sleep."

"I can sleep when I'm dead," Tony waved off his concern. "Now, talk. You never said why you came after me, either. And here you are claiming that it was apparently a good reason. So spill."

Steve wasn't sure what to say. He was good at rousing battlefield speeches. This was a whole other arena, and he'd never trained in the skills it demanded.

His hesitation made Tony raise an eyebrow at him. "Nothing to say, Rogers?"

"You might think you have all the answers, Stark," he shot back, "but there's a lot you don't know about me."

"Yeah? Prove it."

The challenge in Tony's voice was difficult to resist, but he managed, taking a deep breath and using the chance it gave him to gather his thoughts. "First of all, I don't leave a man down," he said, "no matter the work it takes to get him back. You have this image of me in your head from the media and the people who knew me, but all of that is secondhand news at best."

Tony tried to speak, but shut up when Steve caught and held his eyes.

"Second," he went on, "I don't know where you got this idea that anything I said when we met was anywhere near accurate or still applicable. Yeah, I know you think I still see you as some pale copy of your dad, but that's about as far from the truth as it could be. I was trying to come to grips with the idea that everyone I knew was dead, including the dame I'd wanted to marry. Do you have any idea what that's like?"

Tony didn't meet his eyes but managed to find the words to reply. "Not seeing what any of that has to do with me."

Steve wanted to throw his hands up. "I'm trying to tell you."

"Then get to the point!" Tony rolled his eyes. "I've got work to finish."

Pushed past the point of caring whether Tony was anywhere close to understanding, Steve gave up on words. He'd always been better at acting, anyway. Reaching out, he snagged Tony by the waist and pulled him in close, ignoring the startled squawk it got him, and used his free hand to tilt Tony's chin up. "This get the point across?"

The wide-eyed stare Tony gave him in response was both gratifying and annoying. It took quite a lot to truly shock Tony speechless, but Steve wanted an answer more than he wanted to enjoy Tony's reaction.

"Well?"

Tony coughed and cleared his throat, oddly anxious. "Uh, Cap? What are you–?"

"Oh for– Tony, you are the densest excuse for a playboy genius I've ever met."

"Hey! I had no–mmph!"

Tired of the miscommunications, Steve cut him off with a kiss. It took Tony a few more shocked moments to get with the program, but when he did it was clear he'd earned most of his ego and the playboy reputation. He was damned good at this, and Steve found himself letting Tony take the lead, for all that he'd started the kiss.

Steve lost track of time as they stood there. Tony was a solid core of warmth against him, and definitely interested, if the pressure Steve felt against his leg was any indication. The kiss deepened when his hands wandered down to Tony's waist without his conscious decision, keeping them pressed together along the full length of their chests and torsos.

When Tony leaned back enough to gasp for air, he tried to speak again, sounding dazed. "Since when do you–"

Steve cut him off again, not interested in what Tony wanted to ask. They broke apart more quickly that time, and Tony stayed quiet for a moment afterwards.

"Before you go asking dumb questions," Steve told him quietly, not letting go, "this isn't a spur of the moment decision, and I've wanted this for a while. I've been on the internet long enough to know about the concept of gender identity. And I know you're bi."

"What?" Tony blinked at him.

"I'm not as tech illiterate as everyone thinks."

"No, not that. Where'd you hear about the bisexuality? I'm not out."

Steve couldn't stop the amused huff. "I've seen the way you stare at Thor's, well, everything. And Clint's arms. Can't say I fault your taste, but they're spoken for."

"What the hell was in that coffee?" Tony gave his coffee machine a glare. He turned the look on Steve when he realised he hadn't made said coffee yet.

Laughing at him, Steve turned him toward the plate. "Eat, sleep, and then we'll continue this discussion."

"I don't think so." Tony stepped back far enough that he could poke at Steve's chest with one forefinger. "You can't seriously expect that to work in your favor."

Chuckling, Steve turned him towards the plate of food then let go, stepping back to put a bit of distance between them. "Well, if you don't want the sandwiches, I'll take them with me and go back upstairs."

That comment earned him another glare. "Don't think I don't see what you're trying to do, here," Tony warned him.

Not saying a word, Steve took the plate and took a step towards the workshop door. Tony's arms went around his waist, and he found himself fairly insistently pulled backwards. "Did you need something?"

"I need you to make out on the sofa with me."

"Sandwiches first." Steve knew better than to let Tony change the subject that easily, even if he did like the new topic.

Grumbling curses under his breath, Tony conceded the point. "Fine."


End file.
